Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The Library was opened in January of 2012 but today we held an opening ceremony. The library looked good with the new art, exhibition miscelleny, and furniture finally installed. The Qatari corner looked especially exceptional. A few pictures:

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Our Qatar University Comparative Law Conference concluded and was a success. The Conference was the first of a kind in the Gulf region and many scholars, especially Canadian scholars, participated. See the review of the conference.

I attended one day of the conference, and from the discussions and papers presented generated many new acquisition titles for the QU law collection. Great efforts are being undertaken to make Islamic law sources more accessible in translation. I particularly want to recommend the Islamic law bibliography developed by the UK Centre for Legal Education and the Hadith bibliography at the University of Michigan. The mixture of primary and secondary sources in the area is rich.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

I completed a week in Toronto at the International Association of Law Libraries Annual Course. I enjoyed rediscovering Canadian legal sources and traditions My first job as a law librarian assistant was at UBC in Vancouver, Canada, many years ago.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Two legal education activities at QU Law present new opportunities for professional development. For the first time, at no charge, advanced skills classes are offered to local lawyers. Similar to CLEs in the US, these are mini-sessions in advanced contract drafting, advocacy, and in-house counsel skills offered by QU and the ABA. See the announcement to register.

Secondly, QU Law is hosting a Comparative Law conference. From the Conference announcement:

The College of Law invites you to a
conference on Comparative Law scheduled for the 6th and 7th
October, 2012 at 9:00 am till 5:00 pm .
The conference, to be held in the new library auditorium (117), brings together
accomplished scholars in comparative law from countries and universities where
the Civil Law, Islamic Law and the Common Law are taught and practiced.

Dean
Daniel Jutras of McGill Law School, Professor Bruce Archibald of Dalhousie Law
School, Professor Catherine Valcke of Toronto Law School, join Professor
HassanAl Sayed, Professor Hassan
Elbarrawy and Dean Hassan Okour of QU Law College and The Attorney General of
Qatar will deliver the keynote address.

The
aim is to explore the influence of Islamic Law, Common Law and Civil Law on
each other. This will be done by taking a
critical look at Business Law, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law and Obligations
from a comparative perspective.